matters, bearing names which I must acknowlege myself unable to explain.

Notwithstanding the apparent accuracy with which Polyænus details every minute particular of those ancient banquets, it has long seemed to me extremely doubtful whether such a monument as he describes ever actually existed; and my doubts on this subject become stronger the more I consult books of travels, or converse with those who have visited Persia, concerning the natural productions of that country. As an antiquary, Sir William Ouseley has communicated to me his opinion, that Polyænus (who florished in the second century of Christ) may have founded the brazen column on some anecdote recorded by an earlier writer, perhaps Heraclides Cumæus, author of a work concerning Persian affairs (τà Пepoixà), in five books, noticed by Diogenes Laertius (lib. v.), and by Athenæus (lib. iv.), who relates after Heraclides, that a thousand animals were daily slaughtered for the royal feast; horses, camels, oxen, asses, deer, sheep, with geese, hens, and other birds. But Sir William observes, that the brazen column is not mentioned by any writer besides Polyænus; and that although some wealthy Persians, contemporary with Herodotus, may have served up, in celebration of their birth-days, an ox, a horse, a camel, and an ass, roasted whole (Herodot. lib. i. 133. and after him Athenæus, lib. iv.); yet it is scarcely credible, that thirty horses should be slaughtered every day for the royal feast, by order of Cyrus, since his object was rather to augment than reduce the number of those noble quadrupeds. I shall here quote the words of Sir William Ouseley, who, having remarked that the most ancient sculptured marbles at Persepolis do not exhibit any forms of men on horseback, adds: "The absence of mounted figures might authorise an opinion that those sculptures had been executed before the time of Cyrus, whose precept and example first inspired the Persians with a fondness for equestrian exercises, of which, until his time, they had been almost wholly ignorant; for in their mountainous country it was difficult either to feed or to ride horses, and few indeed had been ever seen there. But Cyrus desired that his Persian troops should seem a race of hippocentaurs; he furnished them with horses, and they soon deemed it disgraceful to make even the shortest march on foot— for so he had ordained." This passage is extracted from Sir William Ouseley's Travels (vol. ii. p. 276.), and the authorities which he quotes are these words of Xenophon: "Ev Пépoαis γὰρ διὰ τὸ χαλεπὸν εἶναι καὶ τρέφειν ἵππους καὶ ἱππεύειν ἐν ὀρεινῇ

οὔσῃ τῇ χώρα, καὶ ἰδεῖν ἵππου πάνυ σπάνιον ἦν. (Cyrop. lib. i.) Αἰσχρὸν εἶναι οἷς ἂν ἵππους ἐγὼ πορίσω ἄν τις φάνῃ πεζῇ ἡμῶν πορευ όμενος ἐάν τε πολλὴν ἐάν τε ὀλίγην ὁδὸν δέῃ διελθεῖν, ἵνα καὶ παντάπασιν ἱπποκενταύρους οίωνται ἡμᾶς οἱ ἄνθρωποι εἶναι.” (Cyrop. lib. iv.) He adds, in the communication which I have already noticed concerning Polyænus's brazen column and its extraordinary inscription, that many articles enumerated in it being of rare occurrence, or procured from distant regions, might rather be ascribed to some of those luxurious princes who reigned after Cyrus, than to that frugal and temperate monarch himself, whose Persian subjects, as we learn from Xenophon (Cyrop. lib. vii.), were poor, and supported a miserable existence by laborious exertions:-Πέρσας—κακοβιωτάτους μὲν ὄντας διὰ πενίαν ἐπιπονώτατα δὲ ζῶντας διὰ τῆς χώρας τραχύτητα—not indulging, says Herodotus, in such food as they wished, but such as their sterile and rugged country afforded, and drinking water, not wine— σιτέοντα οὐχ ὅσα ἐθέλουσιν, ἀλλ' ὅσα ἔχουσι χώρην ἔχοντες τρηχείην. πρὸς δὲ οὐκ οἴνῳ διαχρέωνται, ἀλλὰ ὑδροποτέουσιν. (Lib. i. 71.) But the numbers, however great, of oxen and sheep, and the quantities of milk, flour, and some other articles mentioned in the inscription, Sir William does not regard as much exaggerated, considering that 15,000 men partook of the royal feast, according to Ctesias and Dinon, as quoted by Athenæus (lib. iv.): ¿ δὲ Περσῶν βασιλεὺς, ὥς φησι Κτησίας καὶ Δίνων ἐν τοῖς Περσικοῖς, ἐδείπνει μετὰ ἀνδρῶν μυρίων πεντακισχιλίων. This passage, it may be said, relates to the successors of Cyrus: these, however, might have learned from the great founder of their monarchy to distribute daily food among multitudes (παμπόλλοις ἀνθρώποις), besides the immediate guests or friends of the king; for such a custom was instituted by Cyrus, who always sent dishes to the officers and guards on duty, and to others, from his own table (ἀπὸ τῆς βασιλέως τραπέζης), on which also he caused to be placed, as a mark of favor, all the food intended for his servants' daily allowance. This information, derived from Xenophon (Cyrop. lib. viii.), will perhaps account for the multiplicity of dishes which must have appeared at each of those royal banquets; and a passage in Athenæus (lib. iv. extracted from Heraclides Cumæus), will prove that their number was not excessive, in proportion to the multitudes who were fed, either as illustrious guests at the principal tables, as soldiers who received victuals instead of pay, or as servants and menial attendants, to whom the collected fragments afforded a daily meal. Yet, if we may believe Polyænus, the quality and quantity of food recorded

on the brazen column, must have appeared to Alexander as indications of extreme luxury and profusion..

In transmitting these remarks for insertion in the Classical Journal, I am not without strong hopes of eliciting from some of its learned and ingenious correspondents a more satisfactory explanation of the passage under consideration than has hitherto appeared.

L. L.

BIBLICAL CRITICISM.

It must be obvious to every reader of the Greek Testament, that the English version does not render the tenses uniformly according to the rules of grammar. Such a mode of rendering them would indeed be frequently erroneous, if not impracticable. Still it may be questioned, whether sometimes an inattention to grammar rules may not have obscured the meaning of some parts of Scripture; and even, whether it would not be highly useful to ascertain and regulate the proper mode of rendering the tenses, in the same way as was exemplified by Bishop Middleton, in his work on the Greek article.

By way of example, I will offer for consideration the English version of John iii. 16-21. revised, and, as I humbly presume, amended by attention to the tenses, and by not unnecessarily varying the English terms, which correspond to the same Greek

ones.

Verse 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only generated Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

N. B. Generation is propagation of genus and substance: the term generation therefore, prima facie, excludes all idea or possibility of greater or less, in respect to the generator and generated, in genus and substance. And thus the very argument of the chapter is entirely obscured by the term begotten. See verse 6, and compare “ Οἷον εἰ ἔστιν ἡ αὐτὴ οὐσία ἄνθρωπος, οὐκ ý ἔσται μᾶλλον ἢ ἧττον ἄνθρωπος, οὔτε αὐτὸς ἑαυτοῦ, οὔτε ἕτερος ἑτέρου. Aristotle's Categories. Oxon. 1802. P. 67.

Ver. 17. For God sent not his Son into the world, that he

should condemn the world, but that the world through him should be saved.

Ver. 18. He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not hath been condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only generated Son of God.

N. B. An emphasis is here laid in the Greek on the judgment of the world being already past, for it constitutes the very proof that our Lord did not come to condemn the world; viz. because the sentence had been passed before our Lord's discourse with Nicodemus. The law had already accused the world, as our Lord testifies, ch. v. 45, "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father; there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust."

Our

Our Lord had already been believed on as the only generated from the Father, ch. i. 4. It was therefore an insult in Nicodemus to address the Son of God as a teacher sent from God, in the sense in which Nicodemus understood the terms. Lord justly rebuked him in this chapter, ver. 8, which I thus translate: "The Spirit stirreth where it willeth, and thou art hearing his voice, and thou dost not know whence he cometh, or whither he goeth. Thus is every one that hath been generated of the Spirit." [See the Collect for the Nativity.]

The faith of those who really believed on our Lord was a belief that he was the Son of God, the only generated from the Father, having the Spirit in infinity. They who rejected this testimony did not set to their seal that God is true. St. John's words, at the close of this chapter, should be read with our Lord's discourse to Nicodemus. Nicodemus, it should be remembered, was a believer on our Lord as far as the faith of miracles led him and his followers, ch. ii. 23-25; but Jesus knew them all, and his meaning in particular, and rejected such confessions, ch. iii. 11, 12. 31, 32.

He and his fellows, therefore, had been already condemned for not believing in the name and dignity of our Lord as God of God. The same thing is repeated in the last verse of this chapter.

Ver. 19. And this is the condemnation, that the light hath come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.

Ver. 20. For every one that doeth dark things, hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, that his deeds be not scrutinized.

Ver. 21. But he that doeth that which is open, cometh to the

light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they have been wrought in God.

N.B. Here it is manifest, that accordingly as men had acted under the covenant of works, they embraced or rejected the gospel. The occasion for our Lord's stating of the judgment in this way, was afforded by the circumstance that Nicodemus came to him by night. In the expression the light is implied that Nicodemus rejected our Lord as God. For our Lord is declared to be the true and antitypical light, John i. 8-10, and 1 John i. 5-7. We must believe therefore that Jesus Christ is God of God, Light of Light, and very God of very God. This was the testimony of both of the Johns. John i. 8, and 1 John i. 5.

The term φαῦλα is opposed to τὴν ἀλήθειαν, and, as Parkburst observes, is derived from the Hebrew E, to roll and to cover oneself in dust and ashes, &c. [whence the English word foul]. 'Axa primitively signifies unconcealment, and in this sense is sometimes opposed to the law, which veiled the truth in types and shadows. I will now add a few more instances in this chapter, in which perhaps the version might be amended. In the following verses then I would translate as follows:

Ver. 27. It hath been given.

Ver. 29. Which stood; see ch. i. 35.
Ibid. Hath been completed.

Ver. 33. He that received.

M. B.

Litera Quædam Ineditæ ex Autographis inter schedas D'ORVILLIANAS, in Bibliotheca Bodleiana adservatas descripta.

No. III.-[Continued from No. LIX.]

Viro Clarissimo et Doctissimo Jacobo Philippo D'Orville S. D. P. J. Alberti.

REDEUNT ad te, cum gratiarum actione, Valesiana illa; et rediissent prius, nisi quotidie exspectassem Hesychiani Speci